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Kazakhstan

The nation of Kazakhstan is located in Western Europe and is well known for its great mineral resources, vast economic potential, and grand size. The country features a quite varied landscape with large stretches of mountain ranges, heavily-populated areas to the east and barely populated lowlands in the west. The northern region of Kazakhstan is where you’ll encounter the most industrialization, picturesque and barren steppes in the centre, and fertile grounds in the south. The people of Kazakhstan are just as diverse as the landscape with Kazakhs accounting for half of the population, Russians just about a quarter, and the remaining being Uzbeks, Koreans, Chechens, and a few others. These groups seem to live harmoniously amongst one another. The main religion of Kazakhstan is Islam which, even though suppressed during Communist rule, has had a revival following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Kazakhstan is undoubtedly the largest of the former Soviet republics, not including Russia, and is one of the richest countries in the region in terms of fossil fuel reserves and ample storage of minerals and metals such as copper, zinc, and uranium. The booming agricultural life of the country provides ample livestock and grain.

Extractive industries are considered to be the engine for economic growth in Kazakhstan, but the country is also pursuing various diversiﬁcation strategies. The country was the ﬁrst of its kind from the former Soviet Union to receive an investment-grade credit rating, and shows great economic potential for the future. Kazakhstan is abundantly rich in minerals and raw materials, and is not only able to accommodate its own need for these products but also exports various materials as well. The productive potential of the country is considered to be very strong, with industry being at the forefront of its economic success. Agriculture, construction, transport, and communications are also showing strong gains. Raw-materials are the fuel for Kazakhstan’s economy, with other gains coming from machine-building, light industry, and food-processing. There are 105 elements on the periodic table, and 90 of them occur naturally in Kazakhstan, with 70 of those being prospected, and 60 of these involved in the manufacturing process. Utilization of Kazakhstan’s remarkable wealth of natural materials only began in the past 60 years or so, with the discovery of large deposits of rare-earth minerals, coal, iron, silver, gold, bauxite, natural gas, and oil.

With foreign investment in the Caspian oil sector, economic diversiﬁcation, and huge gross domestic product gains in the past two decades, Kazakhstan is seeing a great deal of growth and improvement in its infrastructure. The country has recently lessened its dependance on Russia as a transit country by creating an oil pipeline linking the Tengiz oil ﬁeld in western Kazakhstan to the Russian Black Seaport known as Novorossiysk. Oil exports have also been pumped through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, and a new pipeline that extends into China. Kazakhstan has restricted access to the high seas due to its geographic position and that forces it to rely on neighbors to export major products such as oil and grain. Aviation and roadways in the country are certainly in need of attention, but Caspian Sea ports, pipelines, and rail lines that carry oil have all been upgraded recently. The information technology base and telecoms are in need of further investment but have both shown signs of great improvement. Kazakhstan is currently moving forward with plans to improve reliability of gas and electricity supplies, and is in the process of successfully rebounding from the 2008 recession thanks to prudent government measures. This recovery was also fueled by rising commodity prices. Kazakhstan’s recent diversiﬁcation programme has focused on developing sectors such as pharmaceuticals, transport, telecommunications, petrochemicals, as well as food production and processing. Kazakhstan is now a member of the Belarus-Kazakhstan-Russia Customs Union to boost investment and trade relationships.

There are well over 7 million people in Kazakhstan’s workforce, and the general education and scientiﬁc level of this group is considered to be quite high. Recent studies have shown that at least one worker out of ten has obtained a higher education. That being said, with the fantastic economic growth that Kazakhstan has seen in the past years, there are some skill gaps that have been revealed, and the country is taking a very active role in getting its workforce up to speed. The government, with the support of the World Bank, is actively training a new generation of skilled technical workers to propel the country into an even more prosperous economic future. The country and the government seem to have a keen understanding that economic success comes not only from investing in equipment, but to a greater extent investing in the workers. Kazakhstan is seeing more citizens trained to be skilled geologists, welders, and electricians; jobs that were once ﬁlled by foreign workers. Because Kazakhstan no longer relies on the Soviet-era planned economy, they’re training workers to thrive in the new, demand-driven economy. With increased diversiﬁcation in the nation there is a greater push for a diversiﬁed workforce, as well as more training in service and hospitality-related sectors. With improved training and certiﬁcation, Kazakhstan is bringing their workforce up to par with their economic and industrial gains of the past two decades. There are 68 technical colleges that currently have grants to improve their training and teaching for all kinds of jobs, including food production, tourism, and manufacturing.

With the booming economy and potential for growth in Kazakhstan, there are currently many foreign investors who are interested in the country, due to its growing workforce and wealth of natural resources. It’s still relatively inexpensive to do business in Kazakhstan, and foreign and local investors tend to carry out their business activities in the country through general partnerships, additional liability partnerships, limited liability partnerships, or joint stock companies; with the latter two being the most popular for foreign investors. Since Kazakhstan produces a lot of its own machinery, it’s quite inexpensive to run businesses that deal with manufacturing or food processing. The country has shown great recent improvements in dealing with construction permits, resolving insolvency indicators, and registering property, and has also made it easier to start a business by reducing the amount of time required to register a company at the Public Registration Centre. The time it takes to form a foreign-owned limited liability company in Kazakhstan is faster than the global average. The country’s economic freedom continues to grow each year, with sizable improvements in investment freedom, monetary freedom, and business freedom. The overall economic freedom score of Kazakhstan is well above the world and regional averages.